CHF Canada Workshop 1
A planning session for your co-op
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Planning your Co-op’s future
Facilitated by Tracy Geddes
CHF Canada AGM 2017
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• Introduce yourself
• Where are you from?
• Tell us if your co-operative currently holds an
annual planning session
CHF Canada Workshop 2
A planning session for your co-op
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Agenda 1. Objectives
2. What is Planning?
3. Barriers to planning
4. Why Plan?
5. Types of Planning:
a) Strategic planning
b) Operational planning
c) Work planning
6. The Role of the Board & Staff
7. The Planning Process
8. Swot analysis as a tool
9. Developing a strategic plan
10. Wrap up and evaluation
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Objectives
At the end of this workshop, you will be able to:
Understand the importance of planning
Understand the types of planning necessary
Develop the tools to carry out a planning session
in your co-op
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A planning session for your co-op
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What is Planning? Planning…
• is a dynamic & interactive process
• identifies priorities
• allows the co-op to set realistic goals
• is an on-going process (not a task)
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Barriers to Planning
1. Lack of time
2. Lack of planning experience
3. Lack of knowledge of the benefits of planning
4. Lack of buy-in to the planning process
5. No resources to assist with planning
6. Other?
CHF Canada Workshop 4
A planning session for your co-op
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Why Plan? Planning…
• Identifies needs and outcomes
• Enhances democratic functioning
• Improves operations
• Looks at new ideas
• Gives a clearer idea of the future of the co-op
• Helps to ensure that resources are available
• Builds Community by facilitating involvement and creativity
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A planning session for your co-op
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Bridging the gap…
Many co-op boards do not hold annual
planning sessions.
How can we bridge this gap?
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Types of planning
1. Strategic planning (longer term: 3 – 5 years) - concerned with guiding the co-op beyond the year; identify emerging issues; develop an agreed to vision for the future
2. Operational planning (shorter term: 1 year) – concerned with ongoing operational activities: setting key goals for the year
3. Work planning (shorter term: 1 year) – concerned with how each work unit will help achieve the key goals for the year
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A planning session for your co-op
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1. Strategic planning
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1. Strategic planning
• to identify emerging issues (Mission)
• to develop an agreed on vision for the
future (Goals/desired outcomes)
• to guide the organization
(strategies/measure and targets/results)
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A planning session for your co-op
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1. Strategic Planning
Necessary conditions before a co-op should
undertake strategic planning
• Stability
• Capacity
• Commitment of members
• Availability of expertise
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1. Strategic Planning
Elements of a Strategic Plan
• The mission statement
• The issues the co-op is concerned
about
• The long-term goals for the co-op
CHF Canada Workshop 8
A planning session for your co-op
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2. Operational Planning
• concerned with ongoing activities
• provides a structure for day-to-day
management
Healthy
Co-op
planning
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2. Operational Planning
Tool Kit:
• Board of Directors Calendar
• Preventative Maintenance Calendar
• Financial Calendar
• Annual Goals & Priorities
• Work plan
• Replacement Reserve Plan
CHF Canada Workshop 9
A planning session for your co-op
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3. Work Planning
The Role of Staff
• To assist the board in developing a framework for
planning
• To provide the board with the tools for planning -
financial calendar, board calendar, etc.
• To develop an annual work plan (based on the co-op’s
goals)
• To draft a replacement reserve plan (based on the co-
op’s technical audit or building condition survey and/or
CMHC property inspection reports)
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3. Work Planning
The Role of the Board
• To help the co-op reach its goals
• To promote and encourage planning
• To allocate resources for planning
• To organize the planning process
• To ensure implementation of the plans
• To review, evaluate and update the plans
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A planning session for your co-op
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Board of Directors Calendar
What to Include
Board & GMM dates for the year
Board / Committee
Training dates
Federations Meetings
Information Sessions
Spring / Fall clean up days, Garage
sale days, holidays
Neighbourhood events
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Preventative Maintenance Calendar
Fire / Safety – alarm systems, smoke
detectors Heating Systems
Roofing/Eaves/ Downspouts
Sewer System
Exterior caulking/Painting
Kitchen/bathroom - caulking
Landscaping
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A planning session for your co-op
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Financial Calendar
Audit Annual Income
Verification
Budget General
Members’ Meeting
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Operational Planning
List capital items, remaining
life span
List major repairs needed
Identify priorities for replacement
Health/Safety, Structural,
Urgent, Lifecycle
Obtain approximate
costs
Set timeline for replacement
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A planning session for your co-op
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Annual Goals & Priorities
• Brainstorming Session
• Identify Goals
• Board sets Priorities & Approves Plans
• Present to the Members for approval
• Implement the Plan
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Replacement Reserve
Planning
Technical Audit/Building Condition Survey/CMHC
Property Inspection
• Develop a Replacement Reserve Plan
• Present to Board/Members for approval
• Implement the Plan
• Review and update plan periodically
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A planning session for your co-op
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Prepare to plan
Environmental Scan
External Impacts
• Political?
• Economic?
• Community?
Internal Impacts
• Member selection?
• Finances?
• Maintenance?
• Community?
• Sector involvement?
• Changing demographics?
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A planning session for your co-op
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Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities and Threats • Strengths – are positive attributes internal to the organisation or
situation that are within your control.
• Weaknesses – are also internal factors within your control that may
impede your ability to meet your objectives.
• Opportunities – are external factors that the organisation or project
should (or could) develop.
• Threats – are external factors beyond your control that could place
the project or organisation at risk.
Strengths and weaknesses are internal to the business and are
controllable.
Opportunities and threats are uncontrollable external forces that act
upon the situation.
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A planning session for your co-op
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Effective SWOT Analysis Here are tips for a perfect SWOT analysis:
• use a SWOT analysis to distinguish between
where you are now and where you wish to be,
• be realistic about your strengths and
weaknesses,
• be specific ― only include key points and
issues,
• relate strengths and weaknesses to critical
success factors,
• always aim to state strengths and weaknesses in
competitive terms,
• rank points in order of importance, and
• finally, keep it brief ― never more than a page.
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A planning session for your co-op
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Group activity – swot
information gathering
• brainstorm each category and capture the
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
pertinent to your co-op, or project.
• don’t spend too much time capturing this
information and don’t over analyse. As with all
brainstorming exercises the aim is to capture ideas
pertinent to the current business situation.
• Finally, highlight the most important issues and then rank them in order of importance
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Making sense of it all
• Summarize the key findings from the SWOT exercise
• Discuss ideas on how you can
• build on strengths
• resolve weaknesses
• exploit opportunities
• avoid or manage threats
• Use the ideas to draft a list of
possible priorities
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A planning session for your co-op
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Developing a Strategic Plan • The next stage of the analysis is to take the highest
ranking strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and answer the following questions:
• How do you use your strengths to take advantage of opportunities?
• How do you overcome weaknesses preventing you from taking advantage of opportunities?
• How can your strengths reduce the probability of threats?
• What can you do about your weaknesses to make the threats less likely?
• As you answer these questions you will begin to understand the external forces you contend with and how to tackle them. Use your understanding of the implications to develop a plan of action.
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Setting Goals
• Get agreement on selection criteria for choosing the
goals
• Dot-mocracy
• cost, impact, feasibility (BCA, Replacement reserve
study)
• Too many goals
• makes achievement more difficult
• dilutes the focus
• leads to frustration and overwork
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A planning session for your co-op
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A few good goals... SMART
S Specific
• What exactly will we do?
M Measurable
• How will we know if we have reached our goal?
A Attainable
• Can we really do this? Is it possible?
R Relevant
• Is this really part of our role as a co-op?
• Does it matter to our members?
T Time bound
• Can we set a target date?
• Can we meet a deadline?
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Putting your SMART goals into
words...
Activity/action/task
• include who will do it
Resources required
• expertise, supplies, money, time, people
Timeline/deadline
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A planning session for your co-op
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How to make planning work
• Time & energy commitment
• Preparation
• Process is simple, flexible, understood and
agreed upon
• Expectations are clear
• Capacity to plan (proactive)
• Facilitation & guidance (expertise)
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Getting workshop materials
www.chfcanada.coop/workshopmaterials https://eventmobi.com/2017agm
CHF Canada Website AGM Conference App
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A planning session for your co-op
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Time for Evaluation Evaluations on Conference App
https://eventmobi.com/2017agm/
Paper copies also available in the workshop room!